Long time no blog. mini reviews from random hauls.

One of a few hauls. It's been a while, just wanted to share stuff!

Got all this stuff from Walgreens, Ross, Sephora, and Bath and Body Works.

Mini Reviews:

Bio Oil - Used this a few times. I was kind of scared because it's OIL which usually means clogged pores. But it was fine! and I have combination skin. Haven't used it for a while though, but will continue to. For now, I'm letting my skin breathe, which seems to be working well.

EOS lip balm - I love this little giant ball of lip balm!! I got the honeysuckle one and still haven't lost it. (I tend to misplace lippies a lot and then find them later after buying another one.) The thing I like about this product is that it's cute and durable. Plus, it's so easy to find in my purse. I think that's the number one thing with regular chapsticks. I always have a hard time digging through trying to find them.

I also bought the Mint EOS lip balm. Same everything, though I like minty lip balms better. Overall, great product. I believe it was $5 at Walgreens.

Almay Color Complexion Concealer - I only bought this because it was a BOGO event at Walgreens. I really only used this once and didn't really like it. It's kind of drying, kind of hard to build and blend. Will try using it again someday..

Sephora Pink cleansing pad - Got this at Sephora for about $5 I think. I use it with my face wash when I'm in the shower and it makes me feel more sanitized then using my hands to scrub. So far, love it!

Bath and Body Works - Warm vanilla sugar, Wild Honey Suckle, Rain-kissed leaves, Mint Nectarine. You know, it's lotion. Listed in the order of my favorites.

ELF get the look set - Comes with brown kohl eyeliner, mascara, eyelash curler, and eyeshadow. Was about $4 or less at Ross. I really only got this for the eyelash curler because I broke a previous one. I knew the eyelash curler was awesome, especially for the affordable price. I haven't really used the eye shadow or mascara from this set. I sampled the eye shadow though, and the color is kind of light, but not very pigmented. I like the brown eyeliner though, it's nice and easy to glide on. Though it doesn't really stay on that long.

What's your favorite product right now?

Smudge-proof liner for tightlining?

It's been a long while, I keep procrastinating the post of The Body Shop products I bought like two months ago.. and I'm going to procrastinate some more.

I'm looking for a smudge-proof liner for tightlining. Lately I've been using an eyeliner from covergirl (forgot the name but it's a twisty one) and it smudges quite a bit after a while. Any suggestions? I'd prefer one that doesn't need sharpening. Drugstore + brand name ones?

Unsatisfied facial routine

Hey girls, it's been several months since I last blogged. So I'm less busy now, mostly because I'm working 9-5 and have weekends free for once!

Some life update: I've moved from Pittsburgh to Mountain View, CA for the end of my capstone project for my masters degree. It's glad to be back in California!

I just came back from shopppping, I haven't been to a mall in almost half a year! So I kinda bought whatever I felt like :/. I will blog about the stuff I bought later.. after shopping I realized I really miss blogging and sharing my experiences from the products I use, so I decided to start up again. Most of the stuff I bought were skin care things, so stay tuned!

Anyway, I was continuously breaking out when I was in Pittsburgh. At first I thought it was the whether, but in the end I realize it was a combination of poor diet, dehydration, and lack of sleep. Being so busy made me neglect myself in that way and I really should've prepared for it. I also realized that dairy makes me break out and now I'm trying to cut dairy out of my diet. I knew I was lactose intolerant but didn't know that it also affected my skin.

Anyway, coming back to California, I have more time to be aware of my body, therefore I want to take care of my skin more.

After the move back here, I had to throw a lot of products away due to lack of space.. travelling some thousands of miles wasn't really fun. When I arrived to California, I wanted to use up some of the stuff I bought but didn't really use:

Neutrogena Oil-Free Acne Wash: redness soothing

I bought this because I have red blemishes from spots that were healing and wanted to subdue it. I used it for a week and didn't really like it because it didn't really 'foam' as a cleanser. It was like a lotion consistency. I tried using it again after running out of a different cleanser, but I still don't like it enough that I had to buy a new different cleanser.

Pros

nice tingly feeling after use

Cons

doesn't really do anything for the redness

leaves a residue feeling on the face

doesn't feel like it 'cleans'

Update update!

Hi therrrre. So it's snowing a ton in Pittsburgh. AND LIFE IS SO BUSY :( :(. I barely have time to do anything for fun. It's always work work work. I've been meaning to post something beauty product related. So stay posted! (Might be a while though :P) Hope ya'll are doing well. How is life?

Happy Winter!

It's been a while since I've been here. I'm back on the west coast for winter break! I escaped right before it started snowing consistently.

Oh beach, how I've missed thee.

On a product related note, I started breaking out a lot in the east probably due to the dry weather and stress. So I bought these and they helped.

Neutrogena Acne Stress Control Scrub

It's a gentle scrub with little beads and leaves my skin feeling refreshed.

Clinique Acne Solutions: Spot Healing Gel

This thing works. The end.

Quick Update

Hi everyone!

It's been a while, since I've updated. Unfortunately grad school is very very very demanding and I usually spend my free time relaxing and doing laundry. :P

I just wanted to put this site on hiatus, probably until winter break.

I'll be back.

Have a nice autumn everyone! The leaves are changing and falling. Something I've never seen before, living in the west coast.

Mew

I'm already missing home. Not that I miss home home, but I think I miss my college home where I lived with my roommates and was surrounded by people I love. I'm really glad I'm not living by myself because I now realize that I'm a pretty social person. Since my roommate went home for 4 days or so, I don't have anyone to talk to in RL. My cohorts did plan a night meet-up, but they're doing things I'm not really fond of.. like dancing in a club and what not. I'm not really into that type of stuff, (unless it's in another country, then it's a different story :P).

But yeah... Pittsburgh weather sucks. It's so hot and humid. Being from California, I anticipated cold weather, even in the summer because the forecast said thunderstorms... I guess I ignored the temperature because the weather here reminds me of China. It's hot and humid, but gloomy and bright. And rain is random.

Yep. Sorry I haven't been posting anything beauty related and if I sound emo. I'm just homesick and a really poor grad student living off loans :(. I'll get over it.

On a lighter note, I did buy some stuff from Target! ^_^ Well the only health/beauty stuff I bought was Neutrogena's Oil Free Acne wash and Sonia Kashuk's neutralizer concealer stick. I decided to get the stick because I noticed that in Sonia Kashuk's hidden agenda concealer, I only really use the olive color on the bottom left (I know, I know, the stock image sucks and blocks it), and the concealer stick in Neutralizer is exactly that color. And as for the acne wash, I feel like I'm breaking out more here.. must be the humidity or air or something.

Quick update from the east coast!

Hi everyone! It's been really crazy moving from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh this past week. I still haven't settled into my apartment fully yet, and I still have to figure out some stuff for grad school. Also orientation is going to be all of next week and school starts immediately the week after! X_X

I really hope I have time to blog again soon and to read all your posts and get back to everyone's wonderful comments. Sorry I haven't been good about that, if you were wondering why it seems like I'm MIA, now you know why.

p.s. (I love that there's a Target a 15 min busride away from where I live, hehe)

EOTD and moving out

I told myself I wouldn't buy anything I didn't need because I'm already borrowing loans and tuition for grad school is 18k for one semester. I hung out with some friends today, just loitering around and I saw this Physician's Formula Duo Eye Shadow in Natural Minerals for $3 at Big Lots. I really love neutral shades and most of the ones I have have shimmer to it, so I decided to buy it.

I was also bored one day and decided to use this facemask I bought from China last year. It was okay.. it kinda stinged my face.

Here is the first EOTD of this blog! I was really bored so I used Physician Formula's Shimmer Palette for Hazel Eyes (even though I have brown eyes). The outer color is a nice dark brown and the lid is supposed to be light pink. But the color looks all washed out here.. oh well.

I'm also using Ardell's false lashes in Demi I think. Also, on a sad note, while I was cleaning out the lashes, I was running the water in the sink to rinse them, one of them slipped out of my hand and fell down the drain :(

Life: I'm moving out from the west to the east coast this friday for grad school. I'm excited and scared.. but mostly excited because living at home is no fun since parents can be very controlling most of the time.

It's hard to fit life in 2 standard check-in luggage.

NYX Round lipstick swatch

I got bored so I decided to do some swatches of my NYX round lipsticks in lots of different lighting.. It's kind of sad because I don't really use them that much. I think I use Herades and Frosted Beige most when I first bought them, I like lipgloss more. Oh! I also have Doll, but I forgot to include it here.. so I'll probably include it in a later post. They're all really nice and pigmented, (maybe a little TOO pigmented if that makes any sense.) However, I don't really like the color of Sun Flower.. it looks too orangey on me so I end up looking like an Oompa Loompa.

(click for larger images!)

L-R: Earth Angel, Circe, Sun Flower, Frosted Beige, Rose, Herades

Indoor lighting

bottom to top: Earth Angel, Circe, Sun Flower, Frosted Beige, Rose, Herades

The top two are NYX eye shadow pencils in Mocha (Top) and Lavender.

I actually kind of like the eye shadow pencils, at first I tried using them just as eyeshadows and these creased like no other.. so I just started using them as a base.. it's perfect as a base.

With camera flash

With flash

Indoor lighting

Indoor, direct sunlight.